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Scottish Gaelic Given Names for Women

Scottish Gaelic Given Names for Women:
Names of Scottish Gaels from Non-Gaelic Scottish Sources

Marsail? and/or Marsaili?
Draft Edition

Last updated 6 Nov 2001

This is a draft edition! It is very incomplete! See the first part of this article. You have been warned!

Pre-1600 Scottish Gaelic Evidence

As yet, no pre-1600 Scottish Gaelic examples of the name have been found.

Pre-1600 Latin Language Evidence

There is a marriage dispensation in the Vatican archives (ASPA, 13, 32v.) dated 13 Sep 1465 for "Roderick Macliode and Marcella Celestini de Insulis."[Munro, B41]  Munro probably Anglicized the spelling of the masculine given name but does not appear to have Anglicized the feminine given name from the original Latin. (The bynames also appear unchanged.) Marcella was a granddaughter of the Lord of the Isles and both she and her father appear to have been culturally Gaels. But here her name is being recorded in Latin, not Gaelic.

So while this shows that mid-15th century Scottish Gaels were using a name that was recorded in Latin documents as <Marcella>, it does not tell us what the medieval Gaelic form of that name was.

Pre-1600 Scots Language Evidence

Black cites "Katherine Fuktour and 'Marsle hyr dotthir' and the relict of __ Futtur, were tenants in Strathdee, 1527 (Grant, III, p. 68, 70). 'Merzone Ago Mc yfouctouris wif,' and Elspet Innyfuktour are also recorded there in the same year (ibid.)."[Black, s.n. FUKTOR; see also Scott]  Strathdee is a river valley in the mountains of northeast Scotland, and so would have been in the cultural Highlands in the 16th century. The names of several of the other women recorded in Strathdee cited by Black appear to be Anglicized forms of Gaelic names. Therefore it is very likely that Marsle was also Gael. But here her name is being recorded in Scots, not Gaelic. The particular spelling <Marsle> may (or may not) be because it was an attempt to phonetically render a Gaelic form of the name; then again, it may be that it was an attempt to phonetically render a Scots language form of the name. The intended pronunciation is also unclear; <Marsle> could represent the pronunciation \MAHR-sleh\ or \MAHR-slee\, or it could represent \MAHR-sell\ (rhymes with the English word "parcel").

So while this shows that early 16th century Scottish Gaels were using a name that was recorded in Scots language documents as <Marsle>, it does not tell us what the medieval Gaelic form of that name was.

Pre-1600 Irish Gaelic Evidence

As yet, no pre-1600 Irish Gaelic examples of the name have been found, either for Irish or Scottish Gaels.

Modern Scottish Gaelic Evidence

In modern Scottish Gaelic there is a name spelled <Marsaili> and pronounced roughly \MAHR-seh-lee\. According to Morgan: "Marsaili ... Occasional. Derived from the Latin Marcella, a female diminutive of Marcus, which probably comes from Mars, the name of the Roman god of war. Popularly associated with Marjorie... Occasionally spelt Marsailidh."[Morgan, s.n. Marsaili] 

Pushing back the modern evidence to the early 20th century, Dwelly gives <Marsail> as the Gaelic equivalent of <Marjory>.[Dwelly, p. 1022] 

So this gives three modern Scottish Gaelic spellings for the name, but does not tell us what the medieval Gaelic form of the name was. (Note that the association with <Marjorie> may be entirely modern, and, either way, does not assist much with trying to determine the medieval Gaelic form.)

Speculative Pre-1600 Scottish Gaelic Form

It is clear that at least from the mid-15th century, some form of <Marcella> was used by Scottish Gaels -- or rather, some Gaelic name was equated with Latin <Marcella> and Scots <Marsle>. What is not clear is what that Gaelic form/name was. Without even contemporary Irish Gaelic evidence, any speculation about the likely pre-1600 Scottish Gaelic form is somewhat shaky, like a three-legged stool with only two legs. However, we can triangulate from the knowledge that some form of the name was used by late medieval Gaels (in particular the possibly phonetic rendering <Marsle>) and from the modern Gaelic name with spellings <Marsail> and <Marsaili> and speculate that the late medieval Scottish Gaelic form was also <Marsail> or <Marsaili> or something similar. It is probably less likely that the late medieval Gaelic spelling was <Marsailidh>, since the final <dh> of this modern spelling involves another step away from the original Latin <Marcella>, a step for which we currently have no medieval evidence and no particular reason to expect.

However, all this remains tentative speculation. The actual pre-1600 Scottish Gaelic form may have been quite different.

Scottish Gaelic Given Names for Women

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